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T O P I C R E V I E W

heng44

Astronauts and NASA officials sign their names in wet concrete during the Apollo 7 awards ceremonies at the LBJ ranch on November 2, 1968. Left to right are Sam Phillips, Director of the Apollo Program; Bob Gilruth, Director of the Manned Spacecraft Center; Wally Schirra, Donn Eisele and Walt Cunningham. LBJ is leaning over Schirra's shoulder.

Cozmosis22

Hope it wasn't ole Lyndon's big idea to have these guys kneel down and play in that stinky concrete? Wonder what ever happened to those slabs?

Headshot

Wonder if LBJ had the crew of Apollo 8 do the same thing after their flight?

heng44

He probably had this done by VIP visitors to his ranch.

mach3valkyrie

Wonder if they became part of a "Walk of Fame" sidewalk or patio at the ranch.

Cozmosis22

Guess those concrete slabs could still be there somewhere. That ranch area is huge including the first airstrip located at a president's home. Capable of landing Air Force One, the mile long strip and hangar was used over 70 times as the president flew home often, spending about a quarter of his 5 years in office working there.

Looks like a road trip is in order this summer. Will head out there and look around as much as the Park Service will allow, make some face-to-face inquiries and take some pics.

Henry Heatherbank

"Capable of landing Air Force One." Of course that designation is held by any aircraft in which the President is travelling at the time, although these days everyone immediately pictures the modified blue and white Boeing 747.

What was Air Force One in the 1968 - a Boeing 707?

Did LBJ's ranch really have a strip capable of handling such a large aircraft? (If so, then wow!) Or are we talking about a smaller aircraft that happened to be called Air Force One when shuttling LBJ to and from the ranch.

Robert Pearlman

The Air Force One that flew out of LBJ's ranch was a 13-passenger JetStar VC-140 Lockheed plane, tail number 612490.

Since 2010, the JetStar has been displayed at the ranch.

Johnson had a Boeing 707 as his primary Air Force One but it was too large to land on the 6,300-foot asphalt airstrip.

Headshot

These are referred to as "Friendship Stones." There are about 250, some of which are still displayed by LBJ's Texas White House. LBJ and his staff did not keep an inventory of them.

The Park Service's Inventory list is somewhat incomplete as it does not include Gilruth's or Eisle"s name. Maybe they could not find their stones are were unable to read those names as the list has about half a dozen designated as "unreadable."

The list does include Conrad, Gordon, Bean, Glenn, Shepard, Grissom, Carpenter, Slayton as well as Mueller and Webb.

Spacefest

Col. "Brandy" Brandstetter, former owner of the Las Brisas hotel in Acapulco has quite a collection of these.

He was a good friend of the Apollo guys, who would stay at Brandy's seaside resort for free. His collection was without peer.